Never been to Rome?
Me either. Not yet, anyway.
But I’ve heard a lot about it from people who have been there. Sounds like one crazy kinda town.
I found an interesting write-up about what it’s like to visit Rome by Jim Geraghty of National Review’s Kerry Spot.
So why not . . .
TAKE A VIRTUAL LITERARY TRIP TO ROME.
Ciao!
Sometimes when I tell people that purgatory is not a doctrine Catholics invented but one that predates Christianity (cf., 2 Maccabees 12:44-45) and thus finds a place in historic Judaism they disbelieve me .
EGB13 vf n fvzcyr rapelcgvba zrgubq jurerol rnpu yrggre bs n zrffntr vf ercynprq ol gur yrggre guvegrra yrggref snegure nybat va gur nycunorg (nyybjvat vg gb jenc onpx ba vgfrys bapr M vf ernpurq).
Vg vf pbzzbayl hfrq ba Hfrarg tebhcf gb uvqr fcbvyref, evdhr chapuyvarf, naq bgure bssrafvir zngrevny.
Today is the 41st anniversary of the JFK assassination, and I thought I’d post some photos from a trip I took last summer. I had an extended layover in Ft. Worth, and so I took a cab to Dealey Plaza, where the following photos were taken. (Sorry for the low quality; I only had my camera phone).
The one shown here is a picture of me standing next to the spot where the fatal headshot struck. Later, when leaving the plaza, the cab took me over this exact spot, which totally creeped me out.
One of the things that strikes one upon visiting Dealey Plaza is how small it is. Everything–the school book despository, the concrete pergola, the grassy knoll–is jammed right together in a very small space. When you see images of these on TV, it isn’t clear how close they are to each other, but I tried to show it in the pictures I took.
(Click on them to enlarge and read captions.)
Patrick Carver over at Southern Appeal has a good question:
If the Administration was really lying about Saddam’s possession of
such weapons, why didn’t the Bushies plant the evidence? Why wasn’t it
arranged to have, say, the 101st "find" a cache of chemical weapons
somewhere in the desert?
Down yonder, a Canadian reader asks:
I’m not a lawyer or too familiar with the way the court system works down there.
Could someone please explain to me briefly what privileges and powers the Chief Justice has in your system?
The chief justice doesn’t have much more actual authority than an associate justice. Each justice, whether chief or associate, gets only one vote.
But in addition to having greater ceremonial gravitas and prestige, the chief justice has certain procedural duties. He chairs the meetings of the justices and thus (to some extent) shapes the discussion. If he is in the majority, he also by tradition assigns which justices write the majority opinion. These process-oriented powers may have helped notable chief justices like Earl Warren (let his name be stricken from the monuments) to significantly influence the results the Court put forward.
. . . someone comparing redstaters, Evangelicals, Christians in general, Republicans, Bush-supporters, or the Bush administration to terrorists, the Taliban, al-Qa’eda, Islamic radicals, or what have you . . .
Yesterday I mentioned that I would post an entry about the argument that U.S. action overseas will only inflame "the Arab street," recruiting more and more terrorists to fight against us. In other words, that we’re dealing with an unlimited enemy.
Not true.
One hates to say it, but like the Soviets before them, the Islamists do respect strength. Shows of strength in that part of the world make things better, not worse. They quiet rather than inflame the Arab street–at least in terms of its creation of more terrorists. What really makes new terrorists is showing weakness so that they think they have a chance of succeeding. Making it clear that they do not has a pacification tendency.
This isn’t just my conclusion. It is the conclusion of others, such as Bernard Lewis, the foremost Western scholar of Islam.
So I was watching this episode of DS9 where Dr. Brashir is whining about the fact he was salutatorian rather than valedictorian at Starfleet Medical (because, as revealed in another episode, he deliberately missed a question on a test [because, as revealed in yet another episode, he is a genetically modified human who didn’t want to blow his cover]).
And I get to thinking about the word valedictorian.
Obvious Latin roots.
Looks like it has the roots to mean "farewell" and "to speak" in it.
And, indeed, it does.
Latin: valedicere = vale (farewell) + dicere (to speak); to bid farewell.
A valedictory is thus a "farewell speech" and a valedictorian is the person who gives it at a commencement, usually the highest scoring student.
Then I started thinking about the word vale.
Where does it come from? Looks like an imperative form of valere. But what does valere mean?
"To be strong, to be powerful, to be healthy, to prevail, to succeed."
To succeed?
So "Vale!" might be translated as "Succeed!"
That’s (more or less) what Klingons say to bid each other as a farewell: Qapla’!
I wonder if on Qo’noS they call valedictory a Qapla’SoQ? (Qapla’ = success + SoQ = speech).
Probably the most combat-proficient student gets to give it.